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Topic: Why mark queens? (Read 11931 times)

I am a brand new member to this forum, I'd been reading posts as a guest for around the last week then last night decided to register in order to respond to tandemrx question about marking queens. It seems everyone who posts here are very helpful and everything seems good natured, except bjornbee!!!

In fact his posts are so inflammatory, bizarre, and outright confrontational that I considered not joining here. I'm glad tandemrx and the moderator have confronted him but I doubt it will do any good. Bjorn you attack peoples opinions - which is what a forum is for!!! If people were interested in facts they would just read books. You have got to be the most paranoid and insecure person that I've ever seen post on a forum.

I recently marked my queens for a few reasons; experience, determine age, and supercedure. I forced a swarm from a good hive, and ended up with 4 hives. So with marking my queens, I can keep track of their age, and next year when I don't want swarms I will be able to tell if the swarmed or superceded.

kom, you ain't seen nothing yet...but, even the spats can be informative. some of us, and i am in this category, tend to be combative by nature. :evil:

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As far as marking queens.many of the people on this forum come from Africanized bee areas. Do you doubt the justification for marking queens in these areas? i believe it's the law in Florida if I'm correct. So it would be advocating breaking the law by not having marked queens.there is rhyme and reason for marking queens in some circumstances. I don't think you can paint every scenario with a broad brush.And as far as Robo, It's in his signature line, he doesn't start every post with the Quote.Most people don't read every signature line.

In all fairness, one more post like the one above and you won't have a 4th post in our forum. Not the right attitude to have "walking in the door" anywhere and surely not said as a seasoned member would have expressed him/herself.

Watch it, Bjorn can handle himself fine, it's our job to handle the forum though and your post will not be repeat against any member here in these forums, hope you understand that.

Please enjoy the forum, and if it has helped you in any way, we hope that a small donation can be made to support our FULLY member supported forum. You will never see advertisements here, and that is because of the generous members who have made our forum possible. We are in our second decade as a beekeeping forum and all thanks to member support. At the top right of every page is a donations link. Please help if you can.

As a new guy, that has done more reading than posting, because I am trying to learn, I love Bjorns threads, because it brings out both sides of an issue. Threads like these are great for new guys, everyone is passionate about their position, and as far as I can tell, everyone here behaves themselves, after 20 years on forums, this is a nice place to learn without having to defend your existence. Keep the debates coming, they provoke thought.

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When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. ~ Thomas Jefferson ~

As far as marking queens.many of the people on this forum come from Africanized bee areas. Do you doubt the justification for marking queens in these areas? i believe it's the law in Florida if I'm correct. So it would be advocating breaking the law by not having marked queens.there is rhyme and reason for marking queens in some circumstances. I don't think you can paint every scenario with a broad brush.And as far as Robo, It's in his signature line, he doesn't start every post with the Quote.Most people don't read every signature line.

Doubt the justification for marking queen in AHB areas?

No one bit. I mentioned this in the first post.

Interesting angle. So lets discuss.

For the record, I attended the conference on AHB at Penn State in 2006. I was also involved in rewriting the current Pa state apiary law, as well as the "Best Beekeeping Practices".

I have no problem with marking queens, and see benefit for especially marking them in AHB areas.

BUT.......

I also have ordered every marking pen on the market today and sold by supply stores. They come with warnings of carcinogenic material and a host of health issues. I have obtained MSDS from products and not one manufacturer will go on record as suggesting their product is approved for bee applications.

I have posted an article previous that I had published on this matter.

Bottom line is this.....Not one product is specifically made for marking bees, where you can fully obtain in writing the testing, application for bees or anything else to warrant justification for marking bees with their product.

And I do not buy into the whole....I mark queens and I do not have a problem. They marketed many products to be used by beekeepers over the years, and they all come back later with devastating impacts on queen health and colony health.

I have seen everything from testor paint, nail polish, to modeling super glue applied to queens backs. I challenge ANYONE to paint an 18 inch disk on your back with these same products and see how long you walk around until some irritating rash develops.

And that old "I use water based nontoxic" products. Means NOTHING!

WD-40.....kills bees. Safe and approved hairspray.....kills bees. My kids "water based nontoxic" hair shampoo....kills bees. Just because a product says safe, only cooresponds to the product application and test as per instructed on the label.

My gripe with marking queens is that over the years, we have been sold this bill of good by the bee industry that marking queens is a good thing. Yet to this day, not one product has ever been fully tested, approved or made for marking queens.

So when the state decided to start talking about mandatory marking queens if AHB ever arrived, I started asking questions about the very products they want me to slap on the back of my queens. And what I found was not reassuring to say the least.

I think many people want to keep chemicals out of their hives. Yet, we as an industry seemingly go along with the idea of marking queens, although no product has been tested safe.

So when someone suggest marking queens, and the products being sold by the supply houses contain such ingredients as cyanide, I am not bashful about attempts in killing the idea that beekeepers should daily, be forced fed the idea that marking queens is a good thing.

If we are to be forced to mark queens, or follow industry leaders and supply companies, who suggest marking queens is good regardless of the reasoning.....we should at least demand tested, safe, and approved products to do so.

Until then, I see no reason good enough to offset the potential damage you cause the queen by using the products we have been sold up till this point.

With the queen being the member with the colony longest,perhaps we should advocate not smoking the hive for inspections,not using bee quick or honey robber and definitely do not use mite away,as she would be the most affected as she is there long term. I doubt any of this stuff was intended for repeated use or approved for that matter.How many times would a queen be exposed to all that noxious stuff over a couple year period? In making the comparison to painting a persons skin,a tattoo may be just as fair of a comparison.And I have known many painters that have lived to a ripe old age,produced healthy children and been exposed to fresh paint on the skin on a daily basis.And been exposed to the fumes as they were painting everyday. And I hope that every time someone eats a hot dog, hamburger or piece of bacon,they are concerned about the Nitrates(read carcinogen known to cause cancer)that was used to process this stuff. Given due credit though,the nitrates will kill you slower than the botulism. Just because something is not approved for usage does not necessarily mean it will cause harm. Nor does approval always make it safe.Just as it has not been proven safe for the queen to mark it,I do not think it has proven detrimental either.If electricity was invented in a alarmist world of today, it would never be allowed to be marketed to the general public.

As a former medical professional, the idea of trying to imply human skin with paint on it as an analog for the keratenous exoskeleton of an insect is profoundly flawed. The closest thing on the human body to the exoskeleton of an insect would be the fingernail. Last time I checked, women have been painting those since time in memorium without issue, for years on end. Besides, who really thinks a little dot of paint on the queen is anymore damning than keeping the entire colony in a hive that is, in most cases, COVERED with paint? Yeah, sure, there isn't paint in nature, but bees in nature also aren't kept in little boxes, cracked open every so often and rifled through by humans. If you want to mark your queens, mark them. If you don't... well, don't. I have both marked and unmarked queens. This all starts to seem rather silly.

Highwind....perhaps you should google about nail and finger damage in the nail salon industry, all from "approved" products. Seems many things left on long enough will eat through the nails, probably as you suggest, on a scale compared to the skin of a bee. (Hint...MMA is one product used for years before the damage caused the usage to be prohibited. So to say women have been using products for hundreds of years with no damage, based on nothing penetrating the nail layer, is also flawed.)

Buzz,Interesting you use electricity as an example. So from the point taken as compared to bee products, because you can stick a plug in an outlet, you should be able to stick your finger in just the same? Or because I can shoot the baby shampoo in my kids eyes, I could do the same to the bees with no damage.

Your rationale about painters, is a bit off. On average, smokers, and some in certain career fields, have shorter lifespans as compared to other people. Holding up as example as proof that damage ever happened, by that one smoker who lived to a hundred, would be humorous. There is much documentation about certain career Fields having impacts on lifespan. So it may not be about whether something outright kills something. It may be the difference in the overall quality and longevity of the queen. And certainly anyone around long enough in bees, all almost all agree, that queens today are far less quality than in years past. So looking at everything may just be a good thing. And certainly should not be shoved aside as "alarmist" in nature.

In light of the many products sold to beekeepers over the years that we now know did damage, I may think someone being called an alarmist, might be a good thing. ;)

>>>>And I hope that every time someone eats a hot dog, hamburger or piece of bacon,they are concerned about the Nitrates(read carcinogen known to cause cancer)<<<<

Yes. pay close attention to the above. It could save your life. When this was first discovered, it was on ALL the news. Then, some smart aleck asked "how much?". It turned out that if you were to eat 250 lb. of bacon daily for 350 years, "or vice-versa, I forget", you would get cancer.

As for queen marking with dirty chemicals, why not just use a soldering iron and brand them? I've never heard of a cow dieing from being branded.

In conclusion, wouldn't it be wonderful if marking or not marking a queen was the worst problem facing beeks today?

BUT, it is something to discuss, to pass the time away, and it helps with the post count.

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"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me . . . Anything can happen, child. Anything can be"

I have a difficult time finding the queen in a large hive, so I just look for eggs and larvae. That being said, recently, a friend and I were going through four very large hives that we were planning to split. On the first one, we immediately spotted the queen. "Let's mark her so she will be easier to find when we do the split next week." We did and my heart almost stopped when it took her several seconds to start moving again after we marked her. We decided not to mark the others. When we did the split the next week, she was fine and easy to find. That was my first experience with queen marking. I like a marked queen, but I do not know if my nerves will let me mark any more.

Steve

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